A film with an intriguing premise and likable performances but not much excitement. [13 Oct 1990, p.F13]

If Avalon doesn't succeed in its family-of-man approach, it triumphs on a more theatrical level, as a family-of-actors movie. What Avalon is really about is the magic of performing. [18 Oct 1990, p.F1]

The performances of Close and Silver are flawless, but it is Irons' portrait that remains behind, an enigmatic after-image… Reversal of Fortune is a delectable tour through facets of the lives of the rich and famous that Robin Leach wouldn't touch with a forked stick. [17 Oct 1990]

The pulpiness is less homage than rip-off. There are no tricks up this film's frayed sleeve… Fatalism plus a lot of heavy breathing, and a flash of skin--it's a winning formula, all right. These movies are like Harlequin Romances for slumming highbrows [12 Oct 1990]

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael isn't truly terrible, it's truly confused. It's as though director Jim Abrahams wanted to do heartfelt comedy-drama but couldn't quite shake off the wicked edge of his alma mater, ZAZ: Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, the dementos behind "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun."

In the air Memphis Belle is unstoppable, giving us--earthbound and safe--a clear-eyed look at the nuts and bolts of bravery.

It’s an attempt at fantasy so plodding that by its end it feels as though we’d walked the 20 years back to Belushi’s past, then hacked our way out of it again.

Heart may be what the movie needs most, but a bit of clarity wouldn't hurt either. Even here in gangsterland, where random characters are cherished and non sequiturs are considered wisecracks, there is a difference between complications and impenetrability, and this plot is a bloody thicket.. [5 Oct 1990, Calendar, p.F-10]

This handsome 20th Century Fox release is a smart piece of hard-action filmmaking. [08 Oct 1990, p.F4]

Henry and June is so gentle it almost floats away--but it’s a movie that can’t just be dismissed. It may be a failure but it’s a one-of-a-kind-failure.

If you ignore the script--a good strategy for most recent major studio movies--there’s a lot of talent here. But Cimino’s Hours, instead of getting desperate, gets desperately pretty.

A great compliment to Campion is that the movie never seems less than genuine; it’s consciously anti-commercial. And when “An Angel at My Table” does steer toward a happy ending (this is a film about self-discovery and triumph, after all), even then it strives for gentle epiphany.

Abel Ferrara, director of King of New York, is a virtuoso of grunge. He may not have all the equipment necessary to make a great movie -- he's not real big on narrative, logic, believability, human empathy -- but he sure knows how to shoot the cinematic works. In technical terms, King of New York is his most stylish job yet. In emotional terms, it's as aggressively wacked out as such earlier opuses as "Ms. 45" and "Fear City."

Schlesinger doesn’t really have the low-down skills to pump up the pulp. He’s so concerned not to relinquish his credentials as a “serious” director that the film, instead of seeming serious, seems mostly silly--not scary enough to function as a crackerjack thriller and not complex enough to work as a psychological drama.

Like Sonny’s moving pictures in his mind, Bogdanovich sees things we can’t; when we can join him--in moments of family and connectedness--Texasville is touching. Most other times it’s the darndest mess you ever saw.

Narrow Margin is nothing if not a hard-edge train thriller and to swathe it in so much atmospheric murk that audiences are going to suspect the premature arrival of cataracts seems counterproductive, at the very least.

Unfortunately, what director Joanou makes of all these promising elements is thudding pretentiousness.

A good, solid, admirable, deeply felt movie.

Is this a bad movie? Is the sky blue? Short of repeating all 237 or so of its incredibly limp jokes there's no way to convey how completely Repossessed goes awry. On and on they come, endlessly: like a blizzard of stale pork rinds. [17 Sep 1990, p.F2]

Hardware isn’t long on ideas, emotions or character; it degenerates into a mindless slaughterhouse crescendo.

These and wickedly funny backstage snapshots of moviemaking are the good times of Postcards, but even they can't hide its emotional starvation. [12 Sep 1990, p.1]

GoodFellas is "Raging Bull" squared. [20 September 1990, Calendar, p.F-1]

Sentimentality and violence have gone hand-in-hand from the beginning of the movies, but seldom have they been carried to such extremes and played against each other with such effectiveness as in writer-director John Woo’s The Killer (Nuart), an example of the highly addictive, supercharged, go-for-broke Hong Kong cinema at its most deliberately outrageous.

Opera, while undeniably entertaining, winds up overwhelming its suspense with morbidity. [13 Jun 1990, p.F6]

What many American movies do well these days -- action, violence, hell-for-leather street spectacle -- Darkman does better. That may be praise enough. [24 Aug. 1990, p.F10]

Director James Foley and his co-screenwriter Robert Redlin have pulled Thompson's story out of film noir shadows and set it unflinchingly in the desert's orange-red glare.

With Men at Work actor-writer-director Emilio Estevez has turned out a pleasant, knockabout comedy for himself and brother Charlie Sheen. While it may not be the funniest picture you'll see all year, it is fresh, inventive and has very few moments when it's not generating laughs. [27 Aug 1990, p.F10]

Unlike many “adult” moviemakers, Henson believed his core audience capable of appreciating wit, irony, topical humor, idealism, intense emotion and bemused reflections on real life and all its complexity. All these, and more, are present in The Witches.